Hey all, so this is the biggest thing I’ve tried to print. I’m using PETG. I’m getting a lot of repetitive bands of underextrusion that seem to stack up and get worse as the print progresses.
What do you think is causing this? Is this just an inherent thing in the way an Ender 3 works by moving the bed?
Starting with the hotend too close to the bed?
I had an ender 3 and never got it printing consistently. Level the bed, try again. Level the bed, try again. Ad nauseam. My recommendation would be to level the bed and try printing again.
I wonder if the hotend isn’t hot enough. My Prusas use 230° as the default hotend temp for PETG. Maybe try increasing it?
I second “not hot enough”. The PETG lists it’s ideal temp as 230 on the reel, but it seems to need closer to 245-250 or I get similar.
That’s too bad, I heard the ender really struggles with these higher temps.
The “struggle” is having a PTFE lined hotend which have a maximum temperature limit between 200 to 250C depending on what pets you have, and a thermistor that maxes out at 285C - both which are well within the PETG temperatures though. Ignore both of those and the heater actually has enough oomph to cause the aluminium heater block to melt into a puddle.
I recently had an issue that caused similar issues. Ended up being a bad wheel on the Z axis. Wheel was damaged and the carriage would move up and down as the Z axis traversed causing that stripped pattern.
Good luck!
